Albums
Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Cuba – The Conversation Continues
The year 2015 has seen two monumental musical works where Afro-Caribbean music collides with Jazz: The first is Elio Villafranca’s suite, Cinque which was premiered at Jazz at Lincoln Centre and has since been performed in Bolivia with the Symphony Orchestra there. The second is Cuba – The Conversation Continues by Arturo O’Farrill and the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. This large ensemble led by Mr. O’Farrill, son of the legendary Chico O’Farrill is augmented by celebrated musicians from both Cuba – including the incomparable Bobby Carcassés – and the US – starring Rudresh Mahanthappa and Michele Rosewoman. However it is not so much who performs on this recording as much as the compositions that make up this extended work: five American composers and four Cuban ones. The size of the performing cast and the production staff that worked on this project was also phenomenal – over a hundred – making it akin to a big budget film. In fact it is hoped that there is, in fact, a film that has documented this mighty project.
Editor’s Pick · Featured Album · Cuba – The Conversation Continues
But to begin at the beginning, I am not sure why Arturo O’Farrill is not considered in the same breath as his father, Chico. Just like the latter, the son also rises. In his “Afro Latin Jazz Suite” the centrepiece of this 2-CD set we’ve finally scotched once and for all the notion that he could not orchestrate as effectively as his father. Yet this opus is one of the most remarkable pieces you’ll ever hear in all chamber music. It fuses the idioms of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American in the grand manner. The thesis here – spelled out by the sub-text of this recording namely “The Conversation Continues” – is meant to suggest that this magnum opus continues the music dialogue between Latin American music and Jazz – from where Dizzy Gillespie and Chano Pozo left off, i.e. from “Manteca” that great composition which has been forever etched in the memory of anyone who is besotted by Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American music. The cumulative impact of this music is so great that it pounds the interior landscape of the mind to such an extent that it strikes one as the unique combination of energy and fervour as the performances make you fall in love with Music all over again.
Let’s not, however, suggest that Arturo O’Farrill’s composition is all there is to this record. There is more, a lot more, from composers such as Michele Rosewoman (“Alabanza”), whose New Yor-Uba has already established itself as one of the finest ensembles of its kind with her last record that celebrates 25 years of that stellar group. Then there is one (“The Triumphant Journey”) by Dafnis Prieto, a young drummer who emigrated from Cuba to the United States and who has since cemented his reputation as one of the more serious composers in the US. There is a beautiful work, “Second Line Soca (Brudda Singh)”, from the great Earl McIntyre, who has graced many an important ensembles including ones by Charlie Haden and Carla Bley. Add to that superb music by Bobby Carcassés “Blues Guaguancó”, by the Cuban Michel Herrera – “Just One Moment” – and “Guajira Simple” by Alexis Bosch. There are a total of five contributions from American and four contributions from Cuban composers each sketched at white-hot pace and performed as if dwelling in the arc of that flame.
I can find few words to describe their greatness. They seem to mark the furthest limits that can be attained by human art and imagination. Moreover this ensemble has set the bar very high with their astounding fresh, supple readings of the material and when the time comes it will be no surprise that this recording will garner a clutch of awards (to be shared by Elio Villafranca’s work if it is put down on record. The music is not only of great significance. It is played with such energy that it literally blows the lid off “The Big Top”. It is colourful, beautifully managed – sustained, with a clarity of counterpoint pointing up to the individuality of the musicians as well as their collective finesse that is very much in keeping with the vision of its leader, Arturo O’Farrill, and packs a punch so great that it literally hits it out of the proverbial park. Soloists are magnificent: from alto saxophonist who opens Mr. O’Farrill’s Suite; pianist Michele Rosewoman, the great Bobby Carcassés who makes his “Blues Guaguancó” truly unforgettable, as memorable in fact as the music of Mr. O’Farrill’s sons – Adam and Zack – featured with the ever wonderful DJ Logic – in an extraordinary Arturo O’Farrill composition “Vita Frita”. And then, of course, there is the beautiful work of Earl McIntyre and Renée Manning on Mr. McIntyre’s superb composition.
Most of all there is the Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra who is unafraid to use portamentos which is applied with particular elegance to melodies throughout, which is here encased in warmly voluptuous sound. The ensemble is most impressive and particularly compelling as they tackle the rhythmic vagaries of Afro-Caribbean and Afro-American metaphors in superbly adrenalin-pumped affairs. Shifts in mood – no matter how subtle and real a challenge – are superbly caught. The recording is immediate and present. The notes combine scholarship with readability and are particularly enlightening when it comes to performance details – too vast to be detailed in this review. This is an altogether flawless recording that is a must for any collection.
Arturo O’Farrill & The Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra: Cuba – The Conversation Continues is a 2016 Latin Grammy Awards Winner in the Best Latin Jazz Album Category
Track List: CD1: The Triumphant Journey; The Afro Latin Jazz Suite – Movement I: Mother Africa; Movement II: All of the Americas; Movement III: Adagio; Movement IV: What Now? Guajira Simple; Alabanza; Blues Guaguancó; CD2: Vaca Frita; Just One Moment; El Bombón; Second Line Soca (Brudda Singh); There’s a Statue of Jose Martí in Central Park.
With Special Guest Cuban Composers & Performers: With Special Guest Cuban Composers & Performers: Bobby Carcassés, Alexis Bosch, Cotó, Yasek Manzano, Michel Herrera, Jesus Ricardo Anduz, Antonio Martinez Campos and…
Additional American Composers & Performers: Rudresh Mahanthappa, Dafnis Prieto, DJ Logic, Michele Rosewoman, Renée Manning, Zack O’Farrill, Adam O’Farrill, Gregg August, Earl McIntyre and Arturo O’Farrill.
Released – 2015
Label – Motéma Music
Running time: CD1 – 53:05; CD2 – 38:18
For Claudia Acuña, home has never been a fixed destination. It is something carried—in the body, in memory, in language, and in sound.
On Ave de Luz, the Chilean vocalist brings those fragments together with unusual clarity. After three decades in New York, Acuña no longer treats her roots as something to weave quietly into jazz. She places them at the center. Her striking declaration—“I’m coming in with my crown, my poncho, my everything”—captures the album’s spirit perfectly.
Raised in Concepción during Chile’s dictatorship years and later transformed by New York’s jazz scene, Acuña has spent much of her career moving between worlds. Ave de Luz feels like the moment when those worlds stop competing with one another.
A Specifically Chilean Jazz
Acuña has resisted the idea that “Latin jazz” can be reduced to a single vocabulary. Afro-Cuban and Brazilian traditions may dominate the popular understanding of the term, but Latin America contains countless rhythmic, folkloric and indigenous languages.
Her own metaphor is simple: noodles and spaghetti may look related, but they are not the same thing.
That idea shapes Ave de Luz. The album is not merely jazz with Chilean colour added to it. It is music whose identity emerges from cueca, Andean traditions, indigenous sonorities, poetry, migration and improvisation.
The trutruka, charango, zampoña, tormento and Chilean pandero become part of the album’s grammar. They interact with Manu Koch’s piano and keyboards, Carlos Henderson’s bass and Yayo Serka’s drums and percussion without sounding ornamental or exoticized.
Poetry, Memory and Resistance
“Chinga La Ka Chinga” captures one of the album’s most expansive ideas. Festive on the surface, the piece also acknowledges Afro-Chilean and northern Chilean currents, suggesting how celebration can carry history, resistance and cultural memory within its pulse.
Elsewhere, the music turns inward. “Piececitos de Niño,” inspired by Gabriela Mistral, brings poetry and childhood into the album’s emotional landscape, while “Rezo” feels almost elemental: voice, charango, atmosphere and silence shaping a meditation on nature, distance and belonging.
Acuña’s reading of Violeta Parra’s “La Jardinera” is equally significant. Its imagery of planting, tending and healing becomes an apt metaphor for tradition itself. Culture survives not by remaining untouched, but by being replanted. Acuña does precisely that.
The Wind From the South
“Viento del Sur” also carries special resonance, recalling the title of Acuña’s 2000 debut, Wind from the South. Then, the image suggested a Chilean artist arriving in the international jazz world. Here, the meaning has changed.
The south is no longer where she came from. It is something she continues to carry.
That idea finds its fullest expression in the title track. The “bird of light” becomes an image of migration without erasure—a figure moving forward while remaining connected to its place of origin. The metaphor fits Acuña herself.
Her longtime musical relationship with Koch, Henderson and Serka gives Ave de Luz much of its freedom. Years of trust let the ensemble move naturally between folk memory, jazz improvisation and contemporary textures without forcing boundaries between them.
Ave de Luz may be Claudia Acuña’s most complete artistic statement because it no longer asks her identities to compromise.
The crown is experience.
The poncho is memory.
Jazz is the road between them.
And Claudia Acuña travels that road carrying Chile fully into the light.
Album Information
- Artist: Claudia Acuña
- Album: Ave de Luz: Chilean Jazz & Soul
- Label: Delfin Records
- Release date: July 10, 2026
- Genre: Jazz / Vocal Jazz / Chilean jazz
- Format: Digital/streaming
- Final digital release: 7 tracks, approximately 36 minutes
Tracklist
- Chinga La Ka Chinga – (Claudia Acuña, Coch, Hernandez & Serka) – 4:43
- Ave de Luz– (Mario Rojas) – 5:48
- Viento del Sur– (Claudia Acuña & Jason Lindner) – 6:01
- Rezo– (Claudia Acuña) – 3:49
- Piececitos de Niño– (Based on a poem of Gabriela Mistral / Music by Claudia Acuña) – 6:10
- Un Gorro de Lana– (Víctor Acosta) – 4:18
- La Jardinera– (Violeta Parra) – 6:01
Personnel
- Claudia Acuña – vocals, percussion/claps, tormento; producer
- Manu Koch – piano and keyboards (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5)
- Carlos Henderson – bass
- Yayo Serka – drums and percussion
- Pablo Vergara – piano (tracks 6, 8)
- Andrés Pollak – piano, organ; producer (track 7) | organ (track 1)
- Pablo Zárate – accordion, Chilean pandero (track 2)
- Fredy Torralba – traditional Chilean/Andean instruments including charango, trutruka and zampoña
- Paulina García – spoken word (track 6)
- Daniel Kelley-Acuña – vocals (track 6)
Production Credits
Produced by Claudia Acuña and Andrés Pollak. Most of the sessions were recorded at East Side Sound in New York in November 2025, with “Ave de Luz” recorded at TOC Música in Santiago in October 2025 and additional recording completed at Banduria Studio in Santiago. Andrés Pollak handled engineering on the principal New York sessions; Rafael Chaparro engineered the Santiago title-track session with Javier Lizana assisting. Marc Urselli mixed and mastered the project.
With La Malinche, Eva Cortés delivers one of the most ambitious recordings of her career—a project in which history, identity, migration and music converge around one of the most contested figures in the Americas.
Malintzin, also known as Doña Marina or La Malinche, has long been portrayed through conflicting narratives: interpreter, intermediary, mother of mestizaje, victim, survivor and, in later nationalist mythology, traitor. Cortés does not try to settle that debate. Instead, she uses Malintzin as a symbol of cultural transition, displacement and survival.
That choice makes particular sense for an artist whose own life has unfolded across borders. Born in Honduras (Central America), shaped culturally in Seville (Spain) and later immersed in New York’s jazz community, Cortés has always made music from the space between traditions. On La Malinche, that in-between space becomes the heart of the album.
A Music of Crossings
The album brings together flamenco, Latin jazz, contemporary jazz and Indigenous-inspired imagery without turning the result into a forced fusion.
Rather than attempting to recreate pre-Columbian Mexican music literally, Cortés evokes Indigenous memory through percussion, communal voices, repetition and themes of ancestry, earth and maize. Flamenco enters through Spanish guitar, vocal inflection and the expressive grit associated with cante. Jazz supplies the harmonic freedom and improvisational space that allow those elements to interact.
The musicians surrounding Cortés are crucial to that balance. Pianists Pepe Rivero, Jon Cowherd and Zaccai Curtis, bassists Christian McBride, Luques Curtis and Reinier Elizarde “Negrón,” and drummers Antonio Sánchez, Adam Cruz and Georvis Pico give the album both rhythmic strength and harmonic flexibility. Roman Filiú, Paco Heredia, Marvin Sewell, Bandolero and others expand the palette further. The result is music that never feels boxed into one category.
The Voice at the Center
Cortés’ singing remains the album’s most powerful instrument. Her phrasing can be loose and conversational, then suddenly sharpen into something more urgent and flamenco-inflected. She moves between reflection, mourning, protest and defiance without sacrificing musical control.
Most importantly, she refuses to define Malintzin through betrayal. Her interpretation focuses instead on endurance and complexity.
The opening “Abuelita Malinche” immediately makes that clear. By calling her “Abuelita,” Cortés transforms Malinche from a figure of accusation into an ancestral presence. The arrangement blends Latin-jazz movement with flamenco coloration, while her wordless vocal passages move naturally between scat and cante.
“Hij@s del Maíz” extends that idea of cultural mixture. Paco Heredia’s guitar, Pepe Rivero’s piano, Antonio Sánchez’s drums and the accordion create a sound that travels across regions rather than belonging to one. Maize becomes a symbol of Indigenous continuity, while the music reflects the constantly changing character of mestizaje itself.
From History to the Present
The album becomes even more powerful when it connects the past to contemporary realities.
“Letters to Heaven” and “Remember Me” introduce themes of Indigenous loss and the disappearance of women from both historical memory and present-day communities. “Sur Global” shifts toward resistance, combining rhythmic drive with a broader reflection on colonialism, migration and inequality.
Then “Spanish Harlem” brings the journey firmly into the present. Horns, flute, tumbao and call-and-response place Cortés within New York’s Latin-jazz tradition, completing a musical path that stretches from ancestral memory to the modern city.
A Major Statement
La Malinche is more than an album built around a historical figure. It is a meditation on who controls history, who gets remembered and how identity continues to change across generations and borders.
Cortés turns her own musical hybridity into the album’s central idea. Jazz, flamenco and Latin American traditions do not simply coexist here—they help tell the story.
The result is one of her strongest and most focused recordings to date: emotionally direct, musically sophisticated and deeply rooted in the ongoing conversation between memory and transformation. La Malinche is not about recovering a pure past. It is about reclaiming the right to reinterpret it.
Album Information
- Artist: Eva Cortés
- Album: La Malinche
- Label: Truth Revolution Records / TRRcollective
- Release: June 2026
- Official press release date: June 5, 2026
- TRRcollective Bandcamp release date: June 19, 2026
- Format: CD / Digital
- Number of tracks: 11
- Total running time: 51:53
- Genre: Jazz / Latin Jazz / Flamenco / Afro-Latin
- Recorded in: Madrid, Spain, and Little Falls, New Jersey, USA
Tracklist
- Abuelita Malinche — 4:35
- A Tribo do Vento — 5:46
- Soy el Aire — 5:31
- Light and Sorrow — 3:59
- Hij@s del Maíz — 4:24
- Letters to Heaven — 5:04
- Remember Me — 3:28
- Sur Global — 5:43
- No Me Limites — 4:33
- Indians of All Tribes — 3:53
- Spanish Harlem — 4:57
Personnel
- Eva Cortés — vocals, composer, lyricist, backing vocals
- Pepe Rivero — piano, keyboards, arrangements
- Jon Cowherd — piano
- Zaccai Curtis — piano, keyboards
- Christian McBride — bass
- Luques Curtis — bass
- Reinier Elizarde “Negrón” — bass
- Paco Heredia — Spanish guitar, guitar, arrangements
- Marvin Sewell — guitar
- Roman Filiú — saxophone, flute, backing vocals
- Bobby Martínez — saxophone
- Manuel Machado — trumpet
- Antonio Serrano — harmonica
- Javier Colina — accordion
- Bandolero — percussion
- Roland Guerrero — percussion
- Antonio Sánchez — drums
- Adam Cruz — drums
- Georvis Pico — drums, vocal solo, backing vocals
Production Credits
- Produced by: Eva Cortés, Roman Filiú and Pepe Rivero
- Label: Truth Revolution Records / TRRcollective
- Session One: Camaleón Music Studio, Madrid, Spain
- Recording Engineer, Madrid: Diego Román
- Session Two: Studio Mozart, Little Falls, New Jersey, USA
- Recording Engineer, New Jersey: Kostadin Kamcev
- Mixing: David Darlington
- Mastering: David Darlington
- Mixing and Mastering Studio: Bass Hit Studios, New York, NY
- Photography: Noah Shaye
The title Abriendo Puertas—“Opening Doors”—captures the spirit of guitarist Roni Ben-Hur’s latest recording with unusual precision. Recorded in Havana with an accomplished group of Cuban musicians, the album is built not around the novelty of a visiting jazz guitarist encountering Cuban music, but around something more meaningful: musicians listening closely enough to find a common language.
Ben-Hur has spent much of his career moving naturally between musical worlds. Born in Israel to a Tunisian family and shaped professionally by New York’s jazz community, his playing draws from bebop, Brazilian music, Mediterranean traditions and Latin rhythms without sounding like a collection of influences. His years with pianist and mentor Barry Harris helped establish the melodic clarity, swing and understated sophistication that remain central to his guitar style. On Abriendo Puertas, those qualities fit remarkably well within a Cuban setting.
The key creative partner is pianist Alejandro Falcón, who contributes four of the seven compositions: the title track, “Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby,” “Lo que es del César” and “El Teide.” Rather than treating Ben-Hur as a soloist placed in front of a Cuban rhythm section, Falcón helps create an ensemble language in which guitar and piano continuously exchange roles. Their compatibility is evident from the opening title track, where rhythmic momentum and lyrical improvisation develop patiently rather than through display.
“Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby” pushes the conversation toward the blues while retaining a strong Cuban rhythmic identity. It is one of the album’s most spirited performances, illustrating how readily the vocabulary of jazz can coexist with the rhythmic imagination surrounding Ben-Hur in Havana. By the time the ensemble reaches “Lo que es del César” and “El Teide,” the distinction between guest and host has largely disappeared. What remains is a cohesive band responding to one another in real time.
The album’s romantic center comes through three classic Latin American songs. José Antonio Méndez’s “Mi Mejor Canción” brings the intimacy of the Cuban filin tradition into the program, while Osdalgia Lesmes appears on Isolina Carrillo’s “Dos Gardenias” and Armando Manzanero’s “Esta tarde vi llover.”
Lesmes brings warmth and emotional directness to both performances, and Ben-Hur proves once again what a sensitive accompanist he can be. His guitar surrounds the voice rather than competing with it, reflecting an approach he has developed through years of working with singers, including the late Brazilian vocalist Leny Andrade. Ben-Hur has spoken of the importance of leaving space for vocalists and allowing melody and lyric to remain at the center of an arrangement.
That same sense of space benefits the entire recording. Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez on acoustic bass, Ruy López-Nussa on drums and Octavio Rodríguez Rivera on percussion provide a foundation that is rhythmically rich without becoming overcrowded. Tenor saxophonist Emir Santa Cruz, featured on four tracks, adds another expressive voice and gives several performances a broader jazz-ensemble character.
Recorded at DBega Studios in Havana in November 2025, Abriendo Puertas is part of the Cuban Notes recording series co-produced by Ben-Hur and Dot Time Records founder Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt. Yet the album succeeds beyond the concept behind the series.
Its strength is ultimately found in the musicians themselves. Nobody appears interested in proving how effortlessly jazz and Cuban music can be combined. They simply play together until those distinctions become secondary.
For listeners who appreciate expressive jazz guitar, Cuban music and recordings where collaboration matters more than spectacle, Abriendo Puertas is easy to recommend. Warm, sophisticated and deeply conversational, it finds Roni Ben-Hur opening another musical door—and discovering an ensemble waiting on the other side.
Album Information
Artist: Roni Ben-Hur
Album: Abriendo Puertas
Label: Dot Time Records
Catalog: DT9192
Genre: Jazz / Latin Jazz
Release Date: June 26, 2026
Recorded: November 2025
Studio: DBega Studios, Havana, Cuba
Format: CD / Digital
Program: 7 tracks, approximately 49 minutes.
The project is part of Cuban Notes, co-produced by Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt and Roni Ben-Hur. It follows Alejandro Falcón’s Falcón in Blue as the second album in the series.
Tracklist
1. Abriendo Puertas – Alejandro Falcón – 8:12
2. Mi Mejor Canción – José Antonio Méndez – 6:32
3. Dos Gardenias – Isolina Carrillo – 5:23
4. Gua’ One Blues Pal Bobby – Alejandro Falcón – 9:23
5. Esta tarde vi llover – Armando Manzanero – 5:56
6. Lo que es del César – Alejandro Falcón – 6:17
7. El Teide – Alejandro Falcón – 7:49
Personnel Credits
Roni Ben-Hur — guitar
Alejandro Falcón — piano
Pedro Pablo Gutiérrez — acoustic bass
Ruy López-Nussa — drums
Octavio Rodríguez Rivera — percussion
Emir Santa Cruz — tenor saxophone, tracks 1, 4, 5 and 7
Osdalgia Lesmes — vocals, tracks 3 and 5
Production Credits
Executive Producer: Johanan “Jo” Bickhardt
Co-Producer: Roni Ben-Hur
Recorded at: DBega Studios, Havana
Recording date: November 2025
Sound Engineer: Carlos D’Bega
Label: Dot Time Records
-
25 Most Read Posts13 years agoJuan García-Herreros “Snow Owl” – Normas
-
25 Most Read Posts14 years agoEdy Martínez, the Music Architect Behind the Piano
-
25 Most Read Posts16 years agoRaphael Cruz Reaffirms His Commitment To Latin Jazz!
-
25 Most Read Posts11 years agoRubén Blades con Roberto Delgado & Orquesta: Son de Panamá